Who is to blame for the sorry state of American politics? The candidates? Television? Political consultants and pollsters? Political commentators? The voters? The Internet?
The answer should be obvious — all of the above.
They are all major players in the debasing of our political discourse, turning the pageantry of democracy into a demolition derby largely devoid of principled debate. Modern campaigns are less about ideas than about sound bites, photo ops, attack ads, polls and focus groups. Woe unto the candidate who takes an unpopular position or tries to engage voters in a serious discussion of issues.
Some argue that politics hasn't been the same since television replaced vestigial political parties as the primary link between voters and their elected leaders. They are right about that. Among other things, television put a premium on political sound bites and required candidates to raise vast sums of money to pay for their TV ads, increasing the influence of big donors in politics.
The question now is, how will the Internet change the dynamics of our politics? The New York Times recently reported that the influence of television is waning as the Internet transforms the way campaigns raise money, mobilize supporters and design their advertising. Among other things, the Internet is spawning political insurgencies that promise to further divide the electorate into hostile camps. With the proliferation of interactive Web sites and bloggers, candidates and their consultants can no longer control their message or the flow of money.
One thing we can't slam television or the Internet for is the lack of spontaneity and candor in politics.
For that, we should place the blame where it belongs — on supine candidates and their campaign consultants. Candidates have been neutered by what Time magazine columnist Joe Klein calls the "marketing professionals, consultants and pollsters who, with the flaccid acquiescence of the politicians, have robbed public life of much of its romance and vigor."
Rather than make our politics more interesting and vital, he writes in his new book, "Politics Lost," consultants "have drained a good deal of the life from our democracy. They have become specialists in caution, literal reactionaries — they react to the results of their polling and focus groups; they fear anything they haven't tested."
Al Gore and John Kerry are prime examples of presidential candidates who lost their political souls heeding the advice of their consultants (I know, Karl Rove was pulling George Bush's strings). Klein recalls a dinner conversation in 2003 with several consultants who advised Gore in his unsuccessful 2000 presidential campaign. Klein asked them why Gore had talked so little about the environment, his signature issue, in the campaign. The consultants said because they told him not to. They didn't see any votes in it in places like Michigan and western Pennsylvania.
Gore lost the election because he came across as "stiff, phony and uncomfortable in public," Klein writes. "The stiffness was, in effect, a campaign strategy: Just about every last word he uttered — even the things he said in the debates with George W. Bush — had been market-tested in advance."
Four years later, John Kerry made the same mistake. He allowed his consultants to put him in a political straightjacket in his bid to unseat Bush.
Klein writes: "Perhaps the worst moment came with the Bush administration torture scandal: How to respond to Abu Ghraib? Hold a focus group. But the civilians who volunteered for an Arkansas focus group were conflicted; ultimately, they believed the Bush administration should do whatever was necessary to extract information from the "terrorists." The consultants were unanimous in their recommendation to the candidate: Don't talk about it.
"Kerry had entered Americans politics in the early 1970s, protesting the Vietnam War, including the atrocities committed by his fellow soldiers in Vietnam. But he followed his consultants' advice, never once mentioning Abu Ghraib — or the Justice Department memo that "broadened" accepted interrogation techniques — in his acceptance speech or, remarkably, in his debates with Bush."
Klein says he now understands what Robert Shrum, Kerry's chief consultant, meant when he told him early in the campaign, "We're going to meet the voters where they are." By that, he meant the Kerry campaign was going to follow its polling numbers and focus groups. Kerry and his consultants failed to understand that a presidential campaign is ultimately about leadership and character; not about telling voters what you think they want to hear.
Philip Gailey is editor of editorials for the St. Petersburg Times. E-mail gailey@sptimes.com. Distributed by Scripps Howard News Service.